Remarks on the Employment of Females as Practitioners in Midwifery. By a Physician.
Channing, Walter 1820Published by Cummings & Hilliard, BostonLocation of original: Countway Rare Books, Harvard University

THE attention
of the public having been lately turned to the subject of the employment
of females as accoucheurs, has led to some discussion among the faculty
and others with regard to the safety and expediency of introducing them
into the practice of midwifery instead of physicians. There is, perhaps,
no place of equal size, in which this branch of medical practice has been
so entirely confined to male practitioners as in this town. This circumstance
having rendered it more difficult to come at the facts on this subject,
it has been thought desirable that some statement should be made to enable
the public to judge with fairness and impartiality. The circumstances,
which would render females agreeable and most desirable as attendants
in these cases, are obvious to every one, but the objections to their
employment are of a nature not so immediately perceived, except by physicians
and those conversant in the practice of midwifery; and since one side
of the case, from its very nature, is clearly before the public and can
and does have its influence, it seems right that the opposite should be
so stated and explained, as to have its fair counteracting operation,